


Smile

by Otoshigo



Series: MLB - Oneshots [12]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Father/Son, Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 04:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12335826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Otoshigo/pseuds/Otoshigo
Summary: Adrien no longer smiled. Gabriel will do what he must to change that.





	Smile

Adrien no longer smiled.

His son had become as cold and gray as their home. He grieved, in cold and isolation. Like winter setting in, stealing the sunshine from his hair and the summer from his eyes. He became this listless thing, like a ghost trailing from room to room.

It only compounded Gabriel’s own bereavement, to see the life stolen from his child. Just as his mother was stolen from them.

There was nothing that he could do.

He was a proud man. He was not prone to sensitivities. He did not know how to make his son happy.

Gabriel tried. He gave his son everything money could buy. Fine clothes, all the latest video games, luxuries and amenities that normal children could only dream of. When that did not work, he tried activities instead: Chinese, fencing, piano. Anything to get his mind off his melancholy.

Adrien did as he was bid without complaint. He was, after all, a dutiful child. More dutiful now that he felt their loss so keenly. He didn’t want to make trouble.

Yet he still didn’t smile.

He only grew colder.

It haunted him, his dreams. Wondering if he would turn and see his son simply fade away. Or that he would reach out, only to have his hands pass right through him. Such was his paranoia that he began to bring his young son to his work events.

At one such reception, a photographer came by to take their picture with the other executives and their kin. Awkwardly, he reached out, taking his son’s shoulder to stand in front of him.

“Smile for the camera!” the photographer called, before the flash blinded them.

Gabriel thought nothing of it. At least until the pictures from the reception were sent to him for his approval in a publication.

There, on screen, his son’s smiling face greeted him.

A shock went through him. He stared at the picture, as one stared at an oasis in the desert. His son,  _ smiling. _ It wasn’t Adrien’s true smile. Not his mother’s smile. Yet it came close enough that it was like a balm on his cracked and wounded heart.

It was then that he came to a decision.

Later that evening, he went to his son’s room. He knocked gently before he entered. There he found Adrien sitting atop his bed, playing with some handheld console. As ever, his face was cool and expressionless.

“Adrien,” he called to his son.

“Oui, Père,” the boy answered woodenly, his eyes never leaving the device.

Gabriel stood with his hands clasped behind his back. “I have decided that tomorrow you will begin modeling.” That earned a brief flick of Adrien’s eyes up to his. “Nathalie will arrange your schedule. You will start on our Fall line.”

“...Oui, Père,” Adrien answered, dutifully and disinterested as ever. His attention was already back on his game.

With nothing more to be said, Gabriel studied his son for a moment longer, before departing for his own offices. His mind was already on other projects, other shoots.

Soon, he would see his son smiling again.

Every day, for the rest of his life.


End file.
